Chapter
One
December 24th
1:03 A.M.
This was the first mission he would go out on where he wasn’t the good guy.
He was the villain of this story.
An unsanctioned op that proved to all of them that they had indeed become the monsters they’d long feared they were.
Yet as Steel led his team down a quiet suburban street, he knew there were no forces on earth strong enough to stop him.
While he did not enjoy being placed in this position, he was responsible for his men. He was the one who had led them like lambs to the slaughter, without doing his due diligence to ensure that what sounded too good to be true wasn't just a hoax.
It was because of him that the five men who followed him with such trust had been changed in ways they never would have expected. Therefore, Steel knew he would do whatever it took to right his wrongs and see if there was a way to save his team, the men he considered his brothers, his family.
Even crossing a line there would be no coming back from.
Shouldering the blame for what they were about to do was something he would never complain about. His men deserved a chance to try to reclaim somewhat normal lives, and if this was what he had to do to achieve that for them, he would do it with a clear conscience.
Mostlyclear conscience.
Because deep down inside, he didn't have a single doubt that this was wrong. It could probably even be considered evil.
But desperate times called for desperate measures.
Like the well-oiled machine that they were, there was no need to communicate out loud for them to know they were on the same page. Some people considered their ability to almost read one another’s minds to be extraordinary.
They wouldn't be wrong.
It wasn't like he heard the voices of his teammates in his mind, it was more that his intuition had been so deeply honed that he somehow knew what they were going to say or do before they did it.
Definitely a skill that came in handy for ops that were delicate in nature. Like the one he and his team would be enacting in just a couple of minutes.
Thunder brought the van to a stop outside an ordinary-looking house. It was a two-story, colonial-style, with a simple but neat garden. In the summer, Steel was sure there would be a riot of color in the garden beds that lined the front of the house, and the two large trees in the yard would look stunning in all their autumnal glory.
Now a blanket of snow covered the ground, smothering all that beauty. Or rather replacing it with something harsher, but in his mind still carrying a beauty of its own.
Unlike every other house on the block, there was not a single Christmas light strung up around the porch, no wreath hanging on the front door, and no decorations filling up the yard. It waslike this house existed in another universe, one stripped of the joy and peace people were supposed to feel at this time of year.
The barren emptiness the quiet house showed left him with a twinge of guilt in a place deep inside of him. As though he were about to break something that was already broken.
For some reason, that felt … wrong somehow.
Outside of his team, Steel didn't allow himself to feel anything for anyone.
Couldn’t feel anything anymore.
At least not in the normal way most people experienced emotions.
As part of Prey Security’s Delta Team, he respected the hell out of his boss Eagle Oswald. The man had given them a chance to rebuild their lives, and Steel knew the other man would be both disappointed and furious with what they were doing tonight. Prey was a family, and Delta Team would do anything to protect any member of that family in any way they could. However, the only one of them he truly felt any sense of love toward was Beth Lindon. That woman had been through hell, and Steel and any one of his men would move heaven and earth for her.
The van rolled to a stop, and they all paused.
Dragon, Blade, and Lion used their enhanced senses, and when the three men nodded to give him the all-clear, he slid the door open and climbed out into the night.
